Maternity benefits

sdlaura · December 2010

I finally told my boss that I'm pregnant, so I was able to officially look into maternity leave/benefits. I know they won't seem impessive to women in Canada, but I'm pretty happy considering I know that some women don't get any pay while they're out.

I get 13 weeks, with one week unpaid (I think I can use sick leave for this), then 4 weeks at 100% of pay, 4 weeks at 80%, and 4 weeks at 60%. Plus, California has short-term disability coverage that may replace some of the percentage of pay that I'm losing.

If the baby comes near his/her due date of 5/23, that means I should be able to take off almost the entire summer. I just had to share that I'm pretty relieved about these benefits!

kerrbear72 · December 2010

You're very lucky. I get 6 weeks on short term disability. After taxes, I'll get about $100 a week.

janice74 · December 2010

You should also look into Paid Family Leave, since you are in Calfornia. I received about $998 (whatever the highest payment is) every 2 weeks for 8 weeks on disability and then another 6 weeks of Paid Family Leave for the same amount. I got 8 weeks of disability standard for a c-section, you get 6 weeks for vaginal unless your OB signs for more.

Your DH can also collect 6 weeks of Paid Family Leave. That doesn't even need to be 6 weeks in a row. You can collect a week here and there any time before your baby's first birthday.

sdlaura · December 2010

janice74:

You should also look into Paid Family Leave, since you are in Calfornia. I received about $998 (whatever the highest payment is) every 2 weeks for 8 weeks on disability and then another 6 weeks of Paid Family Leave for the same amount. I got 8 weeks of disability standard for a c-section, you get 6 weeks for vaginal unless your OB signs for more.

Your DH can also collect 6 weeks of Paid Family Leave. That doesn't even need to be 6 weeks in a row. You can collect a week here and there any time before your baby's first birthday.

Thanks, Janice! Do you know if the Paid Family Leave takes into account what you are getting from your job, or is it just extra? My company is based in Boston so our HR person doesn't have much knowledge about CA benefits, and google hasn't helped me too much so far...

adellel · December 2010

That is great! I get 6 weeks of Short-term disability, and work will pay my full salary, minus the minuscule amount that NY pays you weekly for being out. Then I am taking 3 weeks of vacation, have a couple of holidays in there, and then will pay for a month out of our own pocket, using FMLA. I am trying to do the same, take off until Labor Day, assuming I go around my due date of 5/20.

Raquellyo · December 2010

I guess I am pretty lucky with 13 weeks @ 100%. I have 22 days of vacation per year that I can also tap into to extend it. No complaints here!

mokate17 · December 2010

Any weeks of full pay are AWESOME! At both institutions of higher education I've worked for you get 0 weeks paid. If you pay into short term disability insurance, you can collect whatever you've paid into for that (usually 6-8 weeks of benefits) and then just have to use vacation/sick or unpaid beyond that. I know a woman who got pregnant unexpectedly, so didn't have short term disability, and hadn't been stockpiling leave (and that institution doesn't allow you to carry over ANY vacation leave from year to year anyways) so she had to burn all of her vacation and sick just to end up with 6 weeks off. The poor woman was able to get the boss to agree to allow her to come in on weekends to balance out any additional sick/vacation she needed to care for the baby (like if the baby was sick and couldn't go to daycare).

I've since left that institution, but my new one has no paid maternity leave either, so THANKFULLY I was prepared and bought short term disability- otherwise I'd just be burning my sick and vaca too! Consider yourselves lucky if you get ANY paid leave!

kristennd · December 2010

Beyond any stored-up vacation and sick leave, we just have the unpaid FMLA. No short-term disability, etc. And the manual even strongly implies there's a limit to how much of the sick leave you can use before switching to unpaid, so I'll have to get clarification of that once I'm ready to inform HR of the pregnancy.

We started looking into buying a short-term disability policy on our own when getting ready to TTC, but if it took less than a year to get pregnant, we'd be out the money but ineligible for benefits. I wasn't willing to take that chance for the very high price. And it did take less than a year.

msdonnas · December 2010

Those are awesome benefits! I mean, not compared to 100% for all 12 weeks or anything, but that would make me very happy. I just get unpaid FMLA, but I have two weeks of accrued sick days that I will use. It is one of the reasons it was easy for me to take a leave of absence. Since they aren't going to pay me anything or offer incentive to come back, I am going to use my company policy and take a year long leave of absence (I am a teacher and it helps to not have a long term sub for 3 months, but an interim teacher for a year instead).

KariMichael · December 2010

I don't have anything strictly for Maternity leave, but since I wrote my own contract here, I did write in that I can roll my vacation from year to year. I also wrote in that beginging year 4 I would recieve 8 weeks paid each year accrued automatically 1/1I'm about to roll into year 5(silly them didn't think I'd be here this long haha) So on 1/1/11 I will have accrued 22 weeks paid! When i let the boss know about the pregnancy, they weren't too happy to figure out how much time i had... They asked that i only take 12 weeks after birth and that i use the rest of it over time. I can understand that. So, I've got he summer off and paid in full, then i will probably switch to a 3-4 day work week with the "off" days paid in full for the rest of the year.

janice74 · December 2010

L12541:
janice74:

You should also look into Paid Family Leave, since you are in Calfornia. I received about $998 (whatever the highest payment is) every 2 weeks for 8 weeks on disability and then another 6 weeks of Paid Family Leave for the same amount. I got 8 weeks of disability standard for a c-section, you get 6 weeks for vaginal unless your OB signs for more.
Your DH can also collect 6 weeks of Paid Family Leave. That doesn't even need to be 6 weeks in a row. You can collect a week here and there any time before your baby's first birthday.
Thanks, Janice! Do you know if the Paid Family Leave takes into account what you are getting from your job, or is it just extra? My company is based in Boston so our HR person doesn't have much knowledge about CA benefits, and google hasn't helped me too much so far...

I am not sure what they take into account, since I did not get anything from work. I am guessing they will supplement your other maternity benefits, or they will only pay you if you are not collecting anything else.

Here is the website. If you can actually reach a human on the phone, they are always very helpful and nice and can answer your questions.

https://www.edd.ca.gov/disability/Paid_Family_Leave.htm

nickelbabi · December 2010

janice74:
L12541:
janice74:

You should also look into Paid Family Leave, since you are in Calfornia. I received about $998 (whatever the highest payment is) every 2 weeks for 8 weeks on disability and then another 6 weeks of Paid Family Leave for the same amount. I got 8 weeks of disability standard for a c-section, you get 6 weeks for vaginal unless your OB signs for more.

Your DH can also collect 6 weeks of Paid Family Leave. That doesn't even need to be 6 weeks in a row. You can collect a week here and there any time before your baby's first birthday.

Thanks, Janice! Do you know if the Paid Family Leave takes into account what you are getting from your job, or is it just extra? My company is based in Boston so our HR person doesn't have much knowledge about CA benefits, and google hasn't helped me too much so far...

I am not sure what they take into account, since I did not get anything from work. I am guessing they will supplement your other maternity benefits, or they will only pay you if you are not collecting anything else.

Here is the website. If you can actually reach a human on the phone, they are always very helpful and nice and can answer your questions.

https://www.edd.ca.gov/disability/Paid_Family_Leave.htm

The way my HR explained it to me, I will get the CA benefit of 55% of my pay for 12 weeks (with the 1st week unpaid, or 16 weeks for a c-section). This caps out at $987/mo, so if you make $1800/mo. or more, you will not get the full 55% of your pay (just $987/mo). My work also has it's own disability plan that pays 65% percent, so after I get the State's money, I will get an extra 10% (for a total of 65%, not 120%). There's a cap on my private disablity as well, but I am just happy to get something because I've worked in other states and other jobs that offer nothing for maternity benefits.

janice74 · December 2010

nickelbabi:
janice74:
L12541:
janice74:

You should also look into Paid Family Leave, since you are in Calfornia. I received about $998 (whatever the highest payment is) every 2 weeks for 8 weeks on disability and then another 6 weeks of Paid Family Leave for the same amount. I got 8 weeks of disability standard for a c-section, you get 6 weeks for vaginal unless your OB signs for more.
Your DH can also collect 6 weeks of Paid Family Leave. That doesn't even need to be 6 weeks in a row. You can collect a week here and there any time before your baby's first birthday.
Thanks, Janice! Do you know if the Paid Family Leave takes into account what you are getting from your job, or is it just extra? My company is based in Boston so our HR person doesn't have much knowledge about CA benefits, and google hasn't helped me too much so far...
I am not sure what they take into account, since I did not get anything from work. I am guessing they will supplement your other maternity benefits, or they will only pay you if you are not collecting anything else.
Here is the website. If you can actually reach a human on the phone, they are always very helpful and nice and can answer your questions.
https://www.edd.ca.gov/disability/Paid_Family_Leave.htm

The way my HR explained it to me, I will get the CA benefit of 55% of my pay for 12 weeks (with the 1st week unpaid, or 16 weeks for a c-section). This caps out at $987/mo, so if you make $1800/mo. or more, you will not get the full 55% of your pay (just $987/mo). My work also has it's own disability plan that pays 65% percent, so after I get the State's money, I will get an extra 10% (for a total of 65%, not 120%). There's a cap on my private disablity as well, but I am just happy to get something because I've worked in other states and other jobs that offer nothing for maternity benefits.

You should double check that, because I got a check for disability and PFL (total of 14 weeks) for $987 every two weeks, so it's $1974/month (unless it works differently for you since you are getting money from somewhere else)

everam01 · December 2010

I work for a college. If I hadn't spent the last 5 years hoarding my leave, I would get 12 weeks unpaid FMLA only. I hoarded up about 4 months of leave, though, and bought an optional disability policy. Good thing, since I'll probably be put out on bed rest at least a month (maybe 2) before I'm due.

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